The first Bones for Life International Conference
Oct. 24-29 2010
Greenfield, New Hampshire U.S.A

The full group in the conference

Walking with the wrap

Playful with wraps

The organization was perfect, from the Wave&Axis , newsletter
project of Chrish Kresge, to the names of all FMI members
with their pictures, to the rich conference plan, the place map,
the handling of food preferences, as well as a 30 page paper
from, Luis Miguel Gomez of Spain, who analyzed my 40 years
process of development, since my Mindful Spontaneity book
about Feldenkrais to my BFL DVD, without me ever knowing
about him.

The members of the organizing committee, through their
devotion, intensive work and caring availability, created a
spectacular event. Sincere thanks to Kathy Wright, Cici Runge, Doug Boltson, Anna Haltracht, Deborah Lotus and Sue Albin.

Osteoblast started with my Keynote, in honor of Bones for
Life’s achievements on the occasion of my 80th birthday. Full
of energy as ever, as people told me, I talked about how BFL is
entering into the perspective of Health in general; not only by
building bone strength through stimulating blood flow; nor just
by coordinating posture in stomping on the ground, for an
empowered impact, which can remind the bones their destiny of
resisting collapse to gravity; but also in new and unexpected
areas like, for instance, aligning the neck with the spine has
been found to have a stimulating effect on the Thyroid gland, to
a degree of balance that freeing the person from need of chronic
medicine.

A new theme was about Alzheimer, which is one of the most
despairing deceases of today. I brought up the guess that this
brain deterioration might also have a gravity dependent factor to
it: the head, which is constantly held on top, that even in lying
down it is mostly elevated, makes it easy for the blood to empty
out from the brain, while pumping the blood up against gravity
is at risk of being decreased. Especially if the heart is getting
weaker, and the person is not using springy and antigravity full
of impact style of moving.

The evening was completed with a video of my teaching of 6
processes, filmed by Israeli TV, Health channel, which the
conference participants watched in Hebrew, but hopefully could
identify the familiar movements. There is a plan to put an
English sound on it. Mainly I took the opportunity and
encouraged the teachers in our community, to take my DVD as
an inspiration to video their own teachings and distribute them
in this fortunate era of YouTube.

Following the Alzheimer talk, the next morning was dedicated
to relevant processes of very careful and secure maneuvers of
how to train the head to descend lower than the heart. The
morning after was devoted to a prophylactic strategies for
people with fitness, who are concerned to deprogram the fixed
relationship of the head to gravity, which is liable to accumulate
mal nutrition for their brain. The prevention movements are for
those people who are ready to reverse from time to time the
pyramid, and get their pelvis up and the head down. Those were
all new movements with higher daring style than is familiar to
our basic program.

Further new ideas are expected next year, as I shared my
intention to present the Movement Intelligence of walking,Walk for Life to inspire the public, beyond bone concern, with
the dynamics of the essential function of existence, The need for
walking is now strongly present in the consciousness of the
culture, It comes up everywhere, like the resonance of the
hundredth monkey. Some of the Movement Intelligence ideas
can contribute to upgrade walking in unique efficiency and
pleasure. The WFL program will also include the use of Nordic
poles, following the efficiency of the evolutionary patterns of
walking on all fours.

The theme of the third morning was: Uprightness – Who does
not need it? Acquiring the body language of confidence and leadership,
through our exclusive short cuts, which channel the sub-
conscious organism to correct itself.

The last short morning was unusual in that it was dedicated to
The Inner Game of Eating, following my formula:

This was different from anything anyone could imagine for
body shaping.
The urge to eat, is coming from the deepest resources of
existence, which the wishful cognitive thinking has a little or no
chance to overcome by control. The way may not be through
discipline and will power, but rather by learning to support the
organism to increase the sensation of pleasure, as well as to
identify the signal of enough satisfaction, like every wild animal
does, and will spontaneously give up what it does not need.

This process included questions of attitude, which people
answered in their hearts, and probably became more aware of
their personal load associated with the issue of eating.
Finally there was a detailed guidance of the modus operandi of
the actual eating movements, gestures, timing and body
positions, towards building up the signal of satisfaction. There
was a lot of feedback about this process in the forum afterwards.

But the most exciting part of the conference was the workshops
given by the BFL graduates; this marked the first time the new
generation of teachers took the reins and signaled expansion,
richness and new learning within our BFL community. The
atmosphere was one of enthusiasm of special community, so
curious, thinking, daring and eager to share with others. The
only problem was how to choose between several contemporary
workshops. But all the material was recorded and will be
available through the Foundation for Movement Intelligence
U.S.A.

There were reports of the long desired researches about our
work. These first researches on the BFL program were done byDr. Sherrie Farber together with Cynthia Allen and Carol
Montgomery and by Christiane Feuerstein from Austria,
showing scientific ways to present the functional achievements
of our program.

One evening, Dr. Dan de Medina, my private partner, surprised
us with an unscheduled and brain stimulating talk about
futuristic achievements in service of body mobilization.

The conference evenings were dedicated to the development of
our community, including a focus on international activities and
on research. Our international evening began with a panel of
worldwide representatives from some of the counties where
BFL is growing, Japan, Australia, Austria, Russia, Argentina
and Italy; the panel was chaired by Deborah Lotus of the U.S.Isabella Turino from Italy brought a well designed graphic
poster of BFL, which she presented in an Osteoporosis
conference in Italy; Isabella translated her poster into English
and gave copies of it as a gift to the conference participants.
(Every one can also get it online at iturino@tin.it ) The evening
was concluded with the presentation of a video from BFL
Korea: Jenny Groves from Australia trained a group of
dancers on the Dance faculty of Seoul University in BFL and
we could see the fun time these experts had with improvising on
the BFL Tiger walk, Water Carriers and more.

Another evening, led by Cynthia Allen, was about FMI, the
U.S. association for promoting the teaching of BFL. People
realized that only as an association can we elevate our
knowledge to a status of profession, and many participants
volunteered to give a hand to the board and contribute each their
personality and skill. This evening was ended by the bonfire,
which we reached by walking through the woods lit by a full
moon.

The party in the last evening was a bursting expression of the
people’s enthusiasm, feeling high in body and spirit, with the
conviction of owning our mission and what we can do. The
excitement of the powerful dancing said it all. Nancy Haller,
created the magic of brilliance and colors. There was a huge
birthday cake, sent from Sue Albin, who could not come
herself, but she is the one who actually initiated the whole idea
of celebrating my 80th birthday. Thank you Sue. I thanked all
the people who brought me their thoughtful gifts, and the gift of
the conference itself, which was beyond my un-avowed dreams.
Everyone was dancing to live drumming by two special women,
who branded a new concept of femininity that made dance
irresistible.

When people took some break from dancing, Bob Schlesinger,
Cici’s husband, played his creative music on the piano, which
was named, how else, Wave and Axis. All along the conference
he was there to care for the sound technology.

One remarkable excitement was with the CD of Range Marie, a
BFL trainer from Australia, of Maori origin, who recorded theRap dance she had made as sharing her feedback at the
completion of her training. Now she promises to make also a
visual DVD that will be available, so we will have a high
energy, young aspect promotion of Bones.

We left the conference full of inspiration, trust and joy of
belonging.A BFL hug
Ruthy Alon